Physical Difficulties of the Expectant Father
I was a child beneath her touch,--a man
When breast to breast we clung, even I and she,--
A spirit when her spirit looked through me,--
A god when all our life-breath met to fan
Our life-blood, till love’s emulous ardours ran,
Fire within fire, desire in deity.
D. G. ROSSETTI.
The higher the evolution of the creatures, the more is the parental
responsibility shared by both parents. Among human beings the
institution of monogamy, which is universally accepted as a higher
form of human relation than polygamy, involves in the dual partnership
a certain sharing of the actual physical difficulties of parenthood
by the father which is not entailed in the fatherhood of a polygamous
establishment. In fact, a pure monogamy strictly maintained, does
really affect the physical aspects of expectant fatherhood _more_ than
it does the physical aspects of expectant motherhood.
The modern pair, being intensely and deeply united, the effects of the
experiences and physical states of one have actual reverberations and
physical effects on the other. In this respect the change in the girl’s
attitude of mind towards the man, which is sometimes a result of the
physical effect of motherhood (see Chapter III), may have a very far
reaching influence upon the man’s health and happiness if he does not
comprehend the cause of this experience, and, through comprehension,
know how to endure or overcome it. Undoubtedly a home which is
disturbed by uncomprehended antagonisms or suppressed irritations has a
physical effect on the general mental balance, and consequently on the
whole health of the pair involved.
The way in which these difficulties can be overcome is by a mutual
comprehension, so far as is possible, of the needs of each other, and
sometimes perhaps by the attitude of “bowing before the storm” until it
has passed, recognizing that it is a phenomenon beyond human control.
Beyond this may be subtler and more intricate reverberations from
his wife’s state. The actual physical fact has to be faced by the
father-to-be that perhaps rapidly following on the period when all
his natural desires for a completed sex union with his wife were met
and consummated by equal desires in her, there comes a time when such
impulses on his part are not only not responded to by his wife, but are
perhaps antagonized and may be entirely thwarted by either her mental
or her physical condition.
In Chapter XII, I will show how, to some extent, and at probably rather
long intervals, his impulses may be not only satisfied but may be
harmoniously responded to and may be profoundly valuable. Nevertheless,
in almost every period of coming fatherhood, there will be at least
some months when bodily union is actively repugnant and consequently
actively harmful, to the wife. At such a time the instinctive feeling
of the mother against any act should be sufficient to bar it, because,
even if the act itself should not be harmful, to force her will at such
a time or to lure her into coercing herself against her own will is in
itself harmful. A young husband, therefore, will be faced by periods in
which it will be impossible for him to have any of the unions to which
he may have become accustomed and which his natural virility may at
first continue to demand.
This difficulty is of very varying intensity for different types of
men. Some feel it so acutely that, although they may do so with deep
shame, they yield to the impulses and are unfaithful to their wives
in a bodily sense just at the time when of all others they may be
mentally and spiritually most deeply united to her. Such shameful
conflict of will with deed must have blackened many a father’s memory,
and, with due understanding of all the circumstances, it should be
eliminated from our race: it should not take place. Nature has created
a way out for the man who deeply loves and is in sympathetic rapport
with his wife. While the wife on whom he centres all his desires
and love is in a bodily condition which deprives her from such an
experience as a complete union with him, this fact has a mental and
consequently a physical reaction on the better type of man, and he
finds, sometimes even to his surprise, that the instinctive impulses to
which he has been accustomed die down. At first perhaps becoming only
sufficiently dormant to be conquered by a deliberate exertion of the
will, but as the weeks pass and the inhibition from his wife increases,
its reaction stills his desire also, and his need for unions may
temporarily cease.
This is partly to be explained as a nervous reaction due to his anxiety
and his concentration of nervous force on his wife, which tend to
inhibit the setting free of the vital energy which would otherwise
demand an outlet.
The vitality, the physical state, the needs, however, of different men
vary very greatly, and there are those who really do require some
physical assistance in addition to will power and even a religious
determination to help them through this time of difficulty. For such
I recommend daily thorough washing in cold water of the organs of
generation, and when an over-mastering desire may come, the soaking of
the whole body in as hot a full length bath as can be borne.
It may perhaps sound fantastic because one has not yet scientific
proof (neither had Leonardo da Vinci when he casually made the first
announcement that our earth is a planet of the Sun), but I think,
in addition to the physical presence of the secretions potentially
demanding exit, that a very important factor in the desire for sex
union is an electrical accumulation within the system, and undoubtedly
the soaking in hot water tends to disperse this tension, and to allay
the urgency for a desire for a sex union.
These two simple physical assistances, combined with a definite will to
maintain himself purely for his wife, and the definite concentration
of his nervous energy to her support with the desire to contribute
everything possible, mental and bodily, to the well-being of his child,
should suffice to keep the body of a normal man in that condition which
his best instincts will approve. Others more acutely handicapped by
incorrigible physical requirements, may have a hard time; if it is
insupportable, the explanation of that may be the existence of some
slight physical abnormality for which they should and can get medical
treatment.
After the restraint of the time of betrothal, followed by the usage of
the honeymoon, the strain of almost total deprivation again, due to the
wife’s pregnancy, is greater on the husband than it need be; and this
is another argument in favour of deferring conception for at least some
months or a year after the wedding. (_Cf._ _Married Love_, Chapter IX).
Even when, as is indicated later, there may come times when the impulse
of the potential family is to unite, the physical condition of the
mother may offer a hindrance to the customary form of union, but this
with tact and intelligence may be surmounted.